


Colonel Moran Versus the Rug

by tiger_moran



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Humour, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-24 01:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt: ANY SORT OF HURT/COMFORT IS A GOOD FIC. EVEN SILLY HURT/COMFORT. LIKE WHAT IF MORAN TRIPPED ON A RUG AND FELL DOWN THE STAIRS?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colonel Moran Versus the Rug

 Moriarty had been peaceably reading the paper, sitting contentedly before the fire, but the warmth of the room and the lateness of the hour is now causing him to doze off. It is bitterly cold outside but most cosy and pleasant in here, and at last his head tips forward, his reading glasses slip down his nose and the paper drops from his hands.

   He has been asleep for only moments though when the noise – something akin perhaps to a small elephant gallivanting through the house – reverberates through the room, causing the framed pictures on the far wall to clatter alarmingly. This, as if it was not shocking enough, is then followed by a loud exclamation in the unmistakable tones of an extremely irate Colonel Moran of:

   “You fucking bastard! I’ll fucking end you!”

   The initial noise however, followed by the distinct lack of further sound, would lead Moriarty to deduce that there is in fact nobody else present out in the hallway, and that Moran is simply anthropomorphising in his fury.

   Moriarty folds his paper, sets it aside, removes his reading glasses, sets these down, and then leaves the sitting room to confirm his suspicions about the cause of this commotion.

   Moran lies in the hallway, on his back, legs pointing up the stairs. Said stairs or something in their close vicinity are apparently the source of his vexation, as well as the cause of his present predicament and he is eyeing them with intense malice.

   “Sebastian,” Moriarty says, drawing Moran’s glare off the stair carpet and onto him. “What on earth was all that racket?”

   “That fucking rug at the top tripped me! I told you! I told you it was a bloody hazard!”

   “Then perhaps you should have taken more care.” Moriarty approaches him and offers Moran his hand. “Are you hurt?”

  “Reckon I broke my sodding arse,” Moran replies grumpily, trying to sit up.

   “I am not entirely sure that such a thing is possible.” Moriarty rolls his eyes faintly as he hauls Moran to his feet, noting the man’s reluctance then to put weight on his left foot.  “I would be much more concerned however about your ankle than your _derriere_. Come on, come in here, put your arm around my shoulder.” Supporting much of Moran’s weight, he helps the hobbling colonel into the sitting room and onto the sofa.

   Moran grimaces and bites back another curse as Moriarty gently lifts his foot and rests it upon the footstool.

   “I had best send for the doctor,” the professor remarks as he carefully undoes the laces and eases off the boot. “I do not think it is broken or even severely sprained, but I would like an expert opinion all the same.”

   “I don’t want some bloody quack poking and prodding me,” Moran snaps.

   Moriarty raises an eyebrow at him whilst lightly stroking Moran’s injured ankle. “Sebastian,” he says wearily, knowing that Moran would probably still protest that he didn’t need a doctor even if his guts were hanging out or his arm was suddenly missing. “While I do doubt that this is a serious injury, you are still hurt; you require proper attention; do not be such a child.”

   “I’m not a child!”

   “No, most children of my acquaintance have better manners and lack such filthy mouths.” Moriarty gives Moran’s ankle a prod, making him wince just as the maid pokes her head around the door. The poor girl has a rather terrified expression on her face as she enquires if anything is the matter. “Colonel Moran has had a little accident,” Moriarty tells her. “Please would you send for Doctor Carmichael, and see if you could procure some ice, would you, to put on the colonel’s ankle?”

   “Aye, and a brandy,” Moran says.

   “No brandy,” Moriarty says. “Just some ice, thank you.”

   The maid scurries off to do as she’s been asked, leaving Moran and Moriarty to glower at each other.

   “Doctors give patients brandy,” Moran says. “’Bout the only damned thing they can do right sometimes.”

   “No brandy,” Moriarty repeats. “No alcohol until Dr Carmichael has given us his opinion.”

  “Pah!” says Moran, at a loss for anything else to say.

   Moriarty does understand Moran’s aversion to doctors. Many of them _are_ less than reputable, and no doubt too most men would be loathe to admit that they are compromised in any way and need assistance. Moriarty himself would certainly hate to feel so undermined and at the mercy of a near-stranger. But on top of this with Moran is the fact too that he is an ex-army man and as such has no doubt seen some rather horrific sights on the battlefield, a place where surgeons are often questionable in their skills and methods and further constrained by lack of resources; lack of time; lack of everything to enable them to tend to their patients in a capable and humane manner. It is no real surprise then that he mistrusts medical men so.

   Still, though, Moran _does_ need medical attention, and he is going to get it even if Moriarty has to resort to strapping him down so that the doctor can examine him. Moriarty’s understanding of human anatomy is far from negligible but he does want a qualified doctor’s opinion on Moran’s ankle. The colonel is far too valuable to him to allow him to go without a doctor’s examination.

   “Sebastian.” He brushes a few stray strands of hair off Moran’s forehead. Moran watches him warily as he does so. “My poor pigeon.”

   Despite the fact that even this earns a grumble from Moran, still he leans against Moriarty’s touch. Moran does not trust doctors but he trusts Moriarty, and for all his instincts to rail against such attentions and to try to walk off insisting he’s perfectly fine, that he doesn’t need a doctor, doesn’t need anything, he likes Moriarty’s concern.

   “Sirs?” The maid raps on the still open door. “Tommy’s gone for the doctor, sir,” she tells Moriarty as he approaches her, referring to the lad who does odd jobs around the place for them. “And I got some ice, wrapped it up in these clean rags.” She offers the rather sodden bundle to the professor.

   Shortly Moriarty places this around Moran’s ankle, causing him to complain that it is: “Colder than a witch’s teats.”

   “And you have experience of the temperature of witches’ mammary appendages, do you?” Moriarty enquires, although he wouldn’t put it past Moran to have shagged a witch or two in his time.

   Despite the lateness of the hour and the low temperature outside, Dr. Carmichael arrives soon enough, knowing perhaps that it is never a good idea to keep a man like Moriarty waiting.

   “Ah, good evening, Doctor,” the professor says as Carmichael is shown into the sitting room. “Sebastian!” he snaps then without even having to turn around. “Sit down! Where do you think you’re going?” He does turn now and pins Moran with an interrogative stare.

   “Don’t need a doctor, it’s fine, see?” Moran tries to put weight on his ankle, then lets out a faint yet definite scream and his face blanches as his foot buckles under him.

   “If you’ve quite finished.” Moriarty hauls him back onto the sofa and sets his foot back onto the footstool. “Let Dr.Carmichael examine you.”

   Moran acquiesces at last, mindful perhaps of the agony he has just experienced, although this doesn’t stop him from complaining and cursing throughout and twice questioning Carmichael’s credentials.

   “Sprained,” Carmichael announces at length. “Not too badly, but it will need to be kept strapped up, elevated and fully rested for at least the next two or three days.”

   “Two’ll do,” says Moran.

   “Three, _at least_.” Moriarty says in such a firm tone that this puts an end to the discussion.

   Soon enough Carmichael has Moran’s ankle bound up and after the doctor finally leaves, after being given a hot drink, genuine gratitude from Moriarty and extremely grudging thanks from Moran (who has to be prodded by the professor before he will even give him that), Moriarty sits by Moran’s side.

   “No trying to walk on it,” he says.

   “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Moran, seeming somewhat less aggravated now that the doctor has gone, rests his head against Moriarty’s shoulder, although the professor knows perfectly well that Moran will be trying to walk about unaided by tomorrow.

   “I shall have to find you a cane,” he tells him, slipping an arm around Moran’s upper body. “Or perhaps a bath chair.”

  Moran pulls a face at this prospect. “You try to put me in one of those and I will happily throttle you while you sleep, _sir._ ”

  “Which reminds me,” Moriarty continues nonchalantly, “there is the small matter of where you intend to sleep. Perhaps we should make you up a bed down here.”

   “Sod that, I’ll bloody crawl up the stairs on hands and knees if I have to.” Moran has no intention whatsoever of being made to sleep on the sofa. “Although get rid of that blasted rug before I go up there again, please.”

   “There is nothing wrong with the rug; it is not the rug’s fault that you tripped over it, and it is far more practical than _your_ rugs.”

   Since Moran’s own rugs – the only items he has ever actually tried to contribute to the décor of their home - all tend to have heads, this is perfectly true. Moriarty positively refused to allow him to place his tiger skin rugs in any passageway, pointing out that they were an accident waiting to happen. That and on dark nights or gloomy days they frighten the maid.

   “Nothing wrong with my rugs either,” Moran says, although he seems to have lost interest in arguing and is simply saying something out of habit. Now he snuggles closer against Moriarty’s chest and sighs contentedly. “Course I wouldn’t mind sleeping down here if you were to sleep with me, keep me warm.”

   “Don’t be absurd.”

   “Then I’ll crawl upstairs.”

   “Hm.”

   “Unless you’d like to carry me.”

   “ _Moran_.”

   “Go on, sir, bet you could, you’re bigger than me. You could carry me over the threshold.” Moran chuckles to himself while Moriarty absently strokes his arm.

  “Come on, pet,” he says at last. “We had best retire to bed.”

   “Mm,” Moran says sleepily. It seems the warmth of Moriarty’s body and the rhythmic beating of his heart is already lulling the colonel to sleep.

   “We’ll get you upstairs somehow.”

   “Mm.”

   “Although I am _not_ carrying you.”

   “Pity.”

    Approximately half an hour later, after struggling to all but carry Moran upstairs (and repeatedly admonishing him for trying to put too much weight on his left foot), Moriarty finally slips into bed beside his lover. Already Moran is beginning to doze off, despite the awkwardness of his position in the bed due to having his injured foot propped up on an extra pillow.

    “James,” he murmurs drowsily, instinctively moving closer to the professor.

    Moriarty kisses him lightly on the forehead and indulges in a small fond smile. At least life with Moran is never dull, he thinks and then, just as he is himself drifting off to sleep: _‘I will have that rug disposed of in the morning.’_


End file.
